


Forever, Us

by Sapphire09



Series: Heart of Winter [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Child Abuse, Gen, Harry is not a reliable narrator, Harry is protective and a bit not good, Other, Sibling Love, mention of rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-24
Updated: 2014-03-24
Packaged: 2018-01-16 20:50:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1361344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphire09/pseuds/Sapphire09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Harry didn't get on, but he lied when he said never.</p><p>They were once a proper older sister and younger brother, happy and teasing and annoyed at each other. They were good, once. But, it was a long time ago. Too long, that he can't even remember.</p><p>She's always his sister, though. And he's always his brother. It was a fact.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forever, Us

**Author's Note:**

> First attempt at a Sherlock fanfiction. I'm always intrigued by brother-sister relationship...
> 
> This is not Brit-picked or beta-ed. So every mistake is my own.
> 
> Rated M, since the theme is a little disturbing.

_Somebody cries in the middle of the night_  
The neighbors hear, but they turn out the lights  
A fragile soul caught in the hands of fate  
When morning comes it'll be too late

 **Concrete Angel** \- Martina McBride (written by  Stephanie Bentley and Rob Crosby)

* * *

There once was a child with eyes of the sky, with warmth in his hands and heart that encompassed all. He lived in a house made of wood and bricks, in a little town just a few hours from the city of London. He lived with a beautiful mother whose skin made of silk, a strong father with hands of iron, and a cheerful older sister with a sharp mind. They were happy, once upon a time.

However, it didn't last. Time was hard, and the children were small still. The oldest was a week away from her tenth birthday, and the little one was six years younger than her. The father was a soldier who was discharged, before becoming a factory worker, who worked menial labor with minimum pay. The mother was frail, and the sun would make her sicker. It was a hard time for their family, and harder still when their father would come in with smell of alcohol in his breath.

The older child would endure the brunt of their father’s iron-clad hand. She was older, so she would be stronger. Her little brother knew of her pain, but she would not let him carry just a little of her pain. So, he tried to soothe her pain instead. He would have some pain-reliever and cute, cartooned plasters that her sister liked under his pillow. It was the least he could do for his sister.

Their mother saw and knew, but she was frail, and she loves father just a tad bit much for her to do anything. Her silence was what the sister hated more that the iron-fists of the father. Her brother loves their mother still, but he loves his sister, as his sister loves him.

“Someday, when we grow up, I’ll take you away with me. To London!” she promised him one night, as her brother’s small hands gently spread some ointment messily across her bruised skin, before putting one of the colorful and cute plaster on them, the one with her favorite characters.

“We’ll be free, then. There are many tall buildings there, taller and bigger than Mr. Woodwick’s house, even. Of course, father won’t be there! It will be perfect, Johny! Just imagine that, the two of us against the world!”

The brother just smiled in excitement and his sister’s excited voice, not really understanding of what she promised him. But, it was enough for her, and truly, it was the both of them against the world. So, she would endure it, everything, and she would let her brother care for her afterwards. It was a perfect plan.

And then puberty hits.

She was fifteen when her father first raped her.

It was painful. It was disgusting. It was sickening. It was… agonizing.

She limped to her brother’s room afterwards.

“…Harry?” he had asked with voice full of sleep. She said nothing, just limped to him and went up to his bed, holding him in her forced embrace.

“Harry? What’s wrong?” he asked again, concern in his young voice as she trembled. She didn’t answer him. She couldn’t answer him. She could only steal some comfort from him, hold on to him with dear life, because she didn't want to fall. She was crushing him, she realized in the back of her head, but she couldn’t bear to let him go just yet.

She was startled when small, warm arms wrapped around her middle. First tentatively, before holding on to her tightly, as tight as his small arms could, and it felt like he was helping her holding on.

It was both of them against the world.

After the first time, she learned to let her mind go, to distance her mind from her body. She would fill her head to her happy place _(John, London, together)_ , and wait until it was over.

Their mother did nothing to stop him, and she hated her with all her heart.

* * *

She was seventeen when she found her father in John’s room.

She just returned from school. Just another year, she would be in University. She would go to London, and perhaps take a degree in Law. She would take John with her. He could go to secondary school somewhere in London near her, or she could take another less time-consuming degree and have him homeschooled by her.

She didn’t expect the muffled whimper from behind her brother’s door when she arrived. Suspicion rose within her, as well as dread _(‘Where was father? I haven’t seen him since I arrived…’)_ , so she took a paper scissor that John forgot to put away, lying idly near his door, before she turned the knob slowly, pushing the door open. The room was dark.

“…John…?”

Their father was on top of him. John’s legs were dangling and spread—

She saw red.

She pulled their father away with strength that she never had before and threw him to the ground. She couldn’t remember anything but the red-hot anger that coursed within her, the bursting hatred for him that wished him to just die—

When she came to, their father was no longer breathing. His face was destroyed, his eyes stabbed through, his nose and lips in tatters. In her hand, the bloodied scissor was held tightly. She was bathed in her father’s blood.

There was a horrifying realization ( _‘I killed father…. I just killed—_ ’) that tempted to make her scream, before there was a soft whimper that tethered her from breaking down.

“Harry….” John called out to her weakly. She turned around, focusing on her brother instead. The light was dim, but she could see the hand-shaped bruises on his arms, his legs, and his torso. She noticed the blood underneath his legs, and her realization turned from horrifying, to something like anger and relief  _(‘I killed him… He can’t hurt me or John anymore now that he’s dead’)_.

She gently held him in her arms, and it was almost like a few years ago. Only, now John was the one that needed it. The blood that covered her covered John too, but John didn't seem to mind much, so she didn't pull back.

“Did he do what he did to you, too?” she heard him ask weakly. She didn't speak, only nodded. There was silence for a while, as she began to think on how to get rid of the body and erase the evidence, before John spoke again, his voice muffled as he burrowed himself deeper into the embrace. Harry heard him anyway.

“Good thing he’s dead, then.”

They stayed like that before John expressed his need to get clean soon. Somewhere in her mind, Harry knew she should be concerned by the lack of freaking out, both herself and John. She knew she should be. She just killed a man.

But, right now, as she stared down the corpse that once their father, planning the most effective ways to get rid of it _(‘I can cut him down. Easier to hide. Then I can dump him into a river near the house. Small pieces, though. Maybe I need to separate the meat from the bones, too. No one will know whose bone that is’)_ she realized she didn't care. Something in her was re-wired, and she knew this might be her beginning to a road to something…bad.

She hoped John wouldn't follow her down that road.

* * *

A few days after, there was awkwardness in the house. Nobody asked of father, nobody saw him. Even mother was silent. It was almost disconcerting. John was the only one that seemed to go on with his normality in the house.

She realized that he was happier, and it made her happy, too. She went to a University in London and she was about to take John with her, but he refused.

“Mother will be alone,” he said sadly. She was disappointed, but father was no longer there (‘He’s dead. I killed him.’), and John’s caring nature wouldn't let their mother live alone on her own, if he can help it. So, to London alone she went.

She took a course in Law and decided to become a Lawyer. It was in University that she had first taste to alcohol. She never got near them before because every drink in the house belonged to father _(hateful, disgusting)_.

She was addicted to it. The bitter taste was wonderful on her tongue, as well as the sensation it gave her. It was a heady feeling, forgetting and letting go.

She loves it.

Her friends love her for it.

A door was opened for her then, a doorway to a world she had only dreamed before. A doorway to Freedom.

She was free, after eighteen years.

And she fucking enjoy it.

* * *

 

The world crashed around her in her twenty-first year of being alive.

She hadn't come to her childhood house in three years. In those years, she already fell deep into her alcohol addiction. She was forgetting John, and she knew that. There was guilt, but John was safe _(‘Father is dead. I killed him. He can’t harm John anymore’)_ and mother was harmless in her frailty. John also went to school, she sent him herself, so he would get the education he needed for the future. Nothing was supposed to go wrong.

Except, everything went wrong.

After thinking long and hard, in one of the rare times she was sober, she decided to return back to see John in her winter break. After living in London for so long, the small town was placid, bordering on boring for her. But, she will soon see John, and she was giddy with wonder on how much John had grown.

When she does see him, there were a few things she had noticed.

John was a bit taller. (“Well, of course I’m taller! I’ll be even taller, just see!”)

John was a bit thin. (“Yeah, I got into the school’s rugby team. So, I had to work out a bit”)

John was a bit paler. (“See the sky? Not much sun in the last months. Probably that”)

John didn't smile. (“What are you talking about? Are you blind? I’m smiling right now!”)

It was the last thing that rang her inner alarm. John was happy when she left. John was always smiling before she left.

What did she miss?

She was staying for a week. It was only for a week. She only had time for a week. It wasn't enough time to find out anything that changed John.

He would smile for her, but it looked more like a grimace to her. She saw their mother more, her pale pallor was almost ghost-like and she was as beautiful as she always been. She rarely spoke and John stayed close to her, but he would come to Harry, too. He would tell her of his school and how much he missed her, and she would tell him of London. For a week, they were almost like… a normal family.

In her last day, just before she was about to leave, she hugged her brother goodbye. He was hugging her far too tightly, as if not wanting to let go. There was also something desperate in his embrace, but then mother appeared by the door and John had to let go.

Before she stepped in her ride back to London, John’s desperation cling to her mind. There was something that she was missing. There was dread in her heart, worry for John of something.

She couldn't leave feeling like that, so she turned back to the house.

Then, she knew.

When she arrived back to the house, she crept around like a thief. She went to John’s window, but it was latched shut and the view was obstructed by black curtain. It was another that tipped her off.

For the week she was there, John’s window was rarely shut. The black curtain also wasn't there before.

She went to find another entrance. She saw an opened window by the kitchen, so she went there and climbed in into the house. When she was finally inside, she had to control her breathing, before she realized the startling silence of the house.

It was worrying.

She crept to John’s door, only to find it locked. She was about to enter panic mode, because John never locked his room before. She would shake the door, will it to open, if her mother’s soft, pale hand didn't reach hers first.

She found herself face to face with her mother, and she saw the ageless, beautiful face contorted into one of confusion.

“Harriet, dear. I thought you went back already?”

Her melodious voice was poison in her ears, now that her whole being was worried for John. Her hand is still on the knob of John’s door, and she wouldn’t let go until either John opened it or she saw John, tonight.

Her mother saw this, and there was open displeasure that flicked across her expression.

“Where is John?” she asked coldly. Her mother looked at her bleakly, as if her question was one that shouldn't even need to be answered.

She rattled the door again, this time she was well about to cross that line into a state of panic.

“John! If you’re in there, please open the door,” she called out, but there weren't any voices from inside the room. Not even a form of acknowledgement.

Angry, she turned back to her _(hateful,_ hateful) mother.

“WHERE IS HE?” she screamed out. Her mother’s blank look slowly morphed to a pitying smile and she hated her with everything, everything she has.

“Why should I tell you, when you took away my beloved?”

She knows. Her mother knows. Of course. She was smart, even though she was frail. It was always a possibility. But, she was frail.

Glaring at her _(oh, how could this woman be a mother? How could she? How could they be their parents?)_ she immediately took off to another part of the house, searching everywhere like a madwoman. Her mother trailed after her in her own pace, taunting her with her words that he never spoke before.

“John was always the good son. Even James loved him dearly… So much, that he was able to take James into his bed… Before you killed James, that is.”

“You take after James, Harriet. But, John takes after me. He took away my youth as he grows even more beautiful. It’s so hateful, that he dared to enchant my husband away…”

“You took James attention and then killed my beloved, Harriet… Surely, you must realize there would be retribution?”

Never before her mother spoke as many words as then. She blocked out most, but now she truly realized how far her mother is in her deprivation. _(But, now John is more important than this realization—and she had let John spend the last three years alone with her!)_

She was livid. She tore down the house as she yelled and screamed for John.

When she found him, he was confined in a small room hidden under the floor in the kitchen. The room itself was dark, absent of even a flicker of light. The only source of light was only from the hole she had broken in.

The tear-stained face that John had crushed her heart in guilt especially when she remembered why she didn't return sooner _(if only, if only—)_.

“Let’s go,” was all she said before she went and reached his hand, pulling him to his feet and dragged him away from the dark _(nightmares, alone, darkness, cold—she should have returned sooner)_ room. She didn’t see her mother anymore, but she knew the woman must be around.

The night was cold and it was starting to snow, but John’s room was locked before. She didn't want to waste more time, so she put her own jacket on him and put her own scarf around his neck before dragging him towards her ride. She can get more clothing from her luggage later.

Their mother was waiting near the car she had parked near the river, a smile was pasted on her face.

“Are you leaving me, John?”

John was trembling by her side, but he wouldn't answer her. His hold on her hand tightened, and she could feel the instinctive step back when their mother took a step forward.

“Don’t you think the dark room is brilliant, John?” the poisonous voice asked again. “There’s no sound, so you would hear no evil. No light, so you would see no evil. And no one to hear you, so you would speak no evil.”

“You won’t go away from me, John. Aren't you mine, my child? Hateful as you are, am I not your mother still?”

Manipulation. She was using John’s kindhearted nature to make him stay. It was despicable.

“Don’t listen to her, John,” Harry said firmly. “She doesn't deserve it, the word mother. She had stopped being our parent a long time ago.”

She felt more than heard his whimper. But, still he couldn't help his instinct to get away from their mother, and she taunts them, drive them closer and closer to the river’s edge.

The ice is thin on the river, the back of her mind supplied, but John couldn't help it. He backed away and dragged her with him, until one foot is about to touch the thin ice.

“John, come on,” she still had her eyes focused on their mother, who walked even closer to her. Isn't she supposedly frail? How could she walk with such grace in such cold night? As if she heard her thoughts, their mother smiled.

“Sun and heat is sickening and disgusting for me, but the cold of winter is comfortable to me. I wilt in the heat of summer and spring, but I thrive in the coldness of winter. There’s no sun in winter, after all.”

Harry frowned _(‘What kind of condition is that? Aversion to sun?’)_ her distaste and she would taunt her back, but she could feel John backing away further, one foot touching the ice already, before there was a crack and John was lost from her side.

“JOHN!” she exclaimed. But, John disappeared from the surface and going deeper into the calm river _(‘Was it her jacket? Couldn't John swim? Was it the coldness?’)_ , and his shadow was disappearing the deeper he went under.

Ignoring her mother, she went to her car to find anything of use. She found a rope, one that her drinking friend left in his drunken binge. She took it and returned to the spot, but her mother was kneeling by said spot. Her hands were in the water, up to her forearms. She could see John’s hand flailing as air failed him, grabbing and clawing the silken skin of their mother.

“Get away from him!” she pulled her mother away and dropped her rope. She turned to John again and pulled him up by hands. The water was freezing her hands, but John was still in there, so she ignored it. Her hidden strength was used to pull him up, and above the water John’s skin looked very blue with cold.

She heard a snap of tongue behind her, and she glanced to see a mother that was disappointed her son didn't die. A mother that in her mind was harmless, had caused much harm in John’s last three years.

“I’m taking him,” she growled out in anger. “I’m taking him with me, and be thankful I’m too worried about John to kill you right now.”

With that threat, she left her mother by the river, glaring at them both, but not moving an inch. She pulled John as best as she could into the car. In the safety of the car, she turned up the heat and ignored her mother and left the premises, away and to the nearest hospital.

After a week in the hospital, John got his color back. She took him to London to live in her flat. He told her then of Mother’s treatment to him in the last three years.

“She would hold me in the dark room for days, but she would let me out sometimes for me to go to school. She said… things to me, things that I know aren't true, but I can’t help thinking if they were. In that room, her words sounded like the truth, so it must be the truth.

I was waiting for you for three years, Harry… Where were you…?”

When he discovered her alcohol addiction, his face was a picture of blankness. It was clear he didn't like it, but he didn't say anything either.

That blankness reminded her of mother’s face, and it was upsetting.

He didn't leave her flat, but there was a distance between them now. John continued his education in London, while she kept her previous lifestyle. They lived their own life. They no longer ‘get on’.

It was almost lonely.

She graduated University. She found a job at a law firm (where she met Clara). John was graduating soon.

Then, John went to the army.

It was his own decision, one that she only found out the night before the day he left her flat. She didn't agree with him, but she lost the privilege when she left John to their mother’s hand. When she didn't come to him in the course of that three years.

_(“Just once was enough, Harry.”)_

_(“You were the one that wanted to stay, John!”)_

_(“Was it my fault, then? For wanting to stay with the only parent we had left, was it my fault to be so naive? To be so trusting? To trust that you would come back?”)_

_(“It was your choice! And I did come back! You’re here now, aren't you?”)_

_(“Yes, it’s the important part, isn't it? That I’m here, now.”)_

The arguments they had were nightmares on their own. It would involve him blaming her for the drinking, and she would blame him for not coming with her when she offered it.

_(“If you didn't drink yourself to oblivion, you could have found out sooner! “)_

_(“If you had taken my offer from the beginning, maybe I wouldn't even be drinking!”)_

The damage was already done, and they drifted apart. John would come back to London when he could _(as if to spite her)_ , and Harry would try to stay sober _(and failed)_ whenever he came back.

Clara was the only good thing to come out after everything.

She was feisty and a strong woman and she knew herself enough to know where her confidence lies. As a Junior Associate, she was one of the best lawyer the firm had to offer.

Harry loved her, the image that she represented.

John knew of this, but he also lost the right to her life, like she to his. Clara was too in love with her to heed his subtle warning.

Their marriage was a disaster waiting to happen.

John knew it was. Harry knew it was. Clara… couldn't see beyond the haze of her love.

Before John was deployed to Afghanistan, they finally talked. They need to mend something before John went to the unknown where he could very well be shot to death.

Before he went to a danger that Harry couldn't save him from.

_(“I didn't drink because of you, you know…  It was the freedom I felt. After eighteen years, I was free.”)_

_(“Free of father… Free of me, too?”)_

_(“…Yes. God, for the first time, I can finally think of myself. It was selfish, but… I was drunk on that feeling.”)_

John was silent. Harry wished he would say something, but his face was a mask. She rarely saw her little brother anymore, behind that mask.

She didn't say anything more before the night ended. When John went back to the army, she was drinking away her day.

* * *

When she heard John got shot, she decided she could do well by Clara, at least.

 _“I didn't love you, never had”_ she began _“I loved the idea of you.”_

There were screams, there were tears. But she didn't feel any more broken up. Clara went away.

John was in a bad form, with a cane in one hand and sling on the other. His skin was paler than she remembered, and oh how she hates that remainder of mother.

“Will you need a place to stay?” Harry asked, a bottle of scotch in one hand. John looked at the bottle with distaste and shook his head.

“No. The army provided a room for me. I’m here since I heard about Clara,” he said. Harry could see he was uncomfortable to be there, but kind, helpful John… With his sky blue eyes and warmth in his hands and heart that encompasses all felt the need to see how his only family fared in a bad break up.

“…I told her. She went in tears,” she said, “I don’t think I can ever love someone right.”

John frowned, and it was somehow amusing to her that she involuntarily let out a drunken smile.

“Love… is such an ugly word, don’t you think? People painted it to be such a wonderful thing, but what is it, exactly? What does it mean to love? How do you love someone?”

John didn't seem to understand what she meant, but she knew it was only because John didn't dare to try. He came out better, saner, out of the two of them, and Harry thought she mustn't have fucked up too badly, then.

But, she was drunk, and John needed to know.

“You were the only person in the world I love, but look at us today.”

John’s face was pinched in both surprise and a frown, but he didn't say anything. Always silent. Always keeping everything in himself.

Always 'The Stoic Soldier'. He used to be so open...

She pulled out the phone Clara gave her and offered it to John. He didn't have mobile phone, and he’ll need one now.

“Stay in touch, won’t you, little brother?” she said, slumping down, surrendering herself to the drunken haze.

She didn't hear John leaving. When she woke up, it was to a mess of bottles and a massive hangover.

There was a message in her own phone; from the number she registered for John.

_[I left aspirin in your bedroom. Go and drink some water. I also left a carton of milk in your fridge._

_You’re always my sister, Harry. That can never change.]_

* * *

_I still remember the sun  
_ _Always warm on my back  
_ _Somehow it seems colder now_

**Field of Innocence** \- Evanescence

 

 


End file.
